Two Hampshire Airfields, Worthy Down and Chilbolton
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15 College Mill, Winchester Martin Gregory The path of the river Itchen through Winchester was reorganised by the Romans to provide sites for grist mills. Thus mediaeval Winchester had many small mills using the river Itchen as their power supply. They were grouped on several branches of the river, one of which served Abbey Mill and then Floodstock Mill which was on College Street. Floodstock Mill is described as ‘entirely ruinous’ in 1419 and never again produces any revenue 1. However, its tailrace ran through the Warden’s garden in Winchester College. Embanking this tailrace created a fall further down the river, which was used to drive College Mill a century later. Winchester College was founded by William of Wykeham, then Bishop of Winchester, in 1382 to educate 70 scholars. He endowed it with various lands and property to carry out its mission. This endowment included several corn or grist mills including, for instance, the tide mill at Eling, Hants. In 1534, King Henry VIII broke with the Pope in Rome and deprived the Roman church of its annates (annual taxes). Winchester College was included in the list of church benefices which Henry appropriated. However, in 1535, an Act specifically excluded the Colleges of Winchester and Eton and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, from payment of these taxes. Having survived, the College obtained a licence, dated April 14th 1539, from Bishop Gardiner (of Winchester) to Warden More (of the College) ‘to build and maintain a mill for grinding their corn at a suitable spot … on the stream that runs from St. www.hias.org.ukSwithun’s Priory ….’ [803]¶ It is not clear when a start was made on construction but the Bursar’s Account Book for 1564-5 details milling machinery from being brought from the Isle of Wight to Redbridge and thence to the College. The mill was completed in that year by one Robert Long. The Bishop’s lease of the site of the mill and garden was acquired in 1571 [819-20]. Although owned by the College, the mill was let to a succession of millers. One of the Figure 19. David Loggan produced an engraving of the College buildings in 1675. This detail from it shows the mill, labelled G, above conditions of the lease was to the old cloisters [WCA]. grind wheat for the College Downloaded gratis. The ‘Colledge mill’ (sic) appears on the Winchester street plan inset in John Speed’s map of Hampshire (1611); it is the only Winchester mill depicted. The first illustrations of the mill showing its relation to the College buildings are also in the seventeenth century; in David Loggan’s engraving of 1675 (Figure 19) and in an oil painting by William Barfoot of 1692 (Figure 20). By the beginning of the eighteenth century the mill seems to have fallen into disrepair. In 1734, the Warden and Fellows circulated a memorandum on what they should do. This, complete with insertions and deletions, survives [24193]. “That in ye Year 1734 The College Mill being greatly out of Repair, it was proposed by John Marshall jnr the Miller, to undertake the Repairs thereof at his own charge, if the College wou’d grant him a Lease of it. 16 But this not being tho’t advisable for ye College to do upon many considerations; he was nevertheless encouraged & allowed by ye College to Repair ye Mill, & likewise to add 2 new pair of Stones at his own expense upon ye following conditions, 1st That he sho’d continue to Grind all the College Corn Gratis, as had been usual, & to serve them faithfully. 2dly That he sho’d pay to ye College ye accustom’d Rent of £5 pr an. & keep ye Mill in Repair from time to time at his own charge. 3dly That he sho’d give in to ye College a True bill & account Figure 20. William Barfoot’s oil painting of 1692 showing the same of ye charges he has been at in view of the College as Loggan. The mill is above the old cloisters repairing the Mill & setting up [WCA]. ye New Stones. 4thly That at his Death, or other time of his leaving or being turn’d out of ye Mill it shall www.hias.org.uk be entirely submitted to ye Judgement, Will and Discretion of ye Wn (Warden) & Fells (Fellows) of ye sd (said) College for the time being, to make such allowance to him or his execrs (executors), as to them at that timefrom shall appear just & reasonable: the Condition wch (wbich) ye Mill shall be then left in, & the Time of his having enjoyed ye same being taken into Consideration. And for ye better Direction of those that may come after, it is now by ye present Wn & Fs judged reasonable, that wreof (whereof) ye whole Bill of Charges is given in at £153, abt (about) £30 wreof is for ye 2 new pr of Stones; If ye sd 2 pair of stones be left to ye Mill & made ye College property, and the mill be confirmed in good repair: then ye College sho’d reimburseDownloaded to ye Miller or his Family the remainder of ye sd sum of £153 which shall be left after a Deduction made of ten * pounds pr an. for as many years as He shall have enjoy’d ye Mill for ye first ten years (reckoning from Mich 1734) & of Five pds pr an. for ye next Ten years and that at ye end of Twenty years (if he sho’d enjoy it so long) the Whole Mill with all the apparatus of Figure 21. Materials and costs of the repairs of 1734 Stones &c, shall devolve to ye College [24192] 17 without any consideration or allowance whatsoever. *: if £5 a year be not a sufficient deduction so that ye whole sum shall be abated in 31 yrs.” The miller’s account for the repairs is shown in Figure 21 which prices ‘A pare of French Stones’ at £18 and totals £153 for the repairs. Having paid this sum, Thomas Marshall (‘John’ has been struck out on the document and replaced with ‘Thomas’) was granted a lease during his own life [24194]. Wooden milling machinery required a lot of maintenance and so there is a steady stream of documents detailing materials for repairs throughout the eighteenth century. A bill for repairs in 1749 refers to a ‘Boulting mill’ and a ‘Kyln for Drying of Corn’ [24195]. At this time, bricks were quoted at 19d per thousand, sand at 7d per load of 40 bushells and lime at 3d per quarter. In 1757, Robert Willis put in his ‘millright’s bill for work’ including ‘for making and putting in a new water wheel and shaft, 7 guineas’ [33671]. Peter Barratt’s bill for ‘work done at Collodge Water House’ included 1/6d for 6 pounds of tallow for www.hias.org.ukthe Gudgeons’ in 1764 [33676]. Throughout the century there are regular payments of 2 guineas for ‘looking after the College Water Wheel one year due May the first from last’. Down the centuries there are quarrels over water rights. Durngate Mill, City Mill and Segrim’s Well Mill (now Wharf Mill) were on one branch of the river in parallel with Abbey Mill, Figure 22. ‘College Tower, Library & Mill’ by Owen Browne Carter, College Mill and Barton Mill from Picturesque Memorials of Winchester. (1830) (Hammond’s Mill) on another. In 1763, a dispute arose ‘concerning the right of water running from a certain place called the Arrow hole…..and from thence to St Mary’s College Mill …..’ On the side of the document is written ‘This agreement was only proposed by Mr. Goldon, the Steward of the College, but was never executed, the matter being adjusted for the present’ [24201].Downloaded At the start of the nineteenth century H. E. S. Simmons’ notebooks 2 state that there were three pairs of stones. The costs of maintaining the mill continued. In 1809 Wm Freemantle put in a bill for a total of £23 - 14s including ‘12 iron bucketts at 6/6d each (for the wheel), 12 days work for my man at £3 and 4 days work for myself at £1 - 4s’ [33701]. Eight years later, Thos. Shearman rendered his account for work ‘at Colledge Water Wheel’ including ‘2 day fastn’ng jron hanging bucketts on wheel, - 4/6d, for beer, - 6d’ [33706]. Two views of the mill survive from the early nineteenth century: it is shown in one of the plates of Rudolph Ackerman’s history of 1816, and in an engraving by Owen Browne Carter of 1830. Both show the building very much as it is today. 18 The accounts for College Mill as a corn mill cease in the 1870s when Mr. J. B. Dance was the tenant [24208]. The water wheel remained in use, however, to drive a pump which provided an auxiliary water supply to College Conduit. The bin floor was removed and the stone floor cleared for use as a workshop. In his report to the Warden in January 1892 3, the Headmaster (W. A. Fearon) states: ‘The College Mill has been fitted up as a carpenter’s shop for the use of the school; and it serves the purpose admirably; the Figure 23. The upper floor of the mill as a workshop in 1922. The water power is being man on the right is J. D. Le Couteur, an expert on stained glass; the adapted during these photographer was Walter Abley, the physics technician at the holidays for the turning of College.